As It Seems
by Queen Gwenyvere
Summary: Perhaps they're all just broken souls, in the end. Unfinished stories and shattered dreams, pieces to be put back together, or thrown in the trash. (Hotch/Emily)
1. I Knew What I Didn't Want to Know

**Author's** Note: My first foray into Criminal Minds and Hotchniss. Spoilers for all of CM up through the end of S7, and eventually S8. I may borrow some episode dialogue where appropriate. One may also notice references to BSG, Doctor Who, The West Wing, Farscape, Buffy, Nora Roberts, and other works that have influenced me. The title of this piece comes from the song heard at the end of "Run," the CM S7 finale. Chapter titles are various lyrics to that song. Criminal Minds belongs to CBS, Jeff Davis, et al. Thanks, as always, to the fantastic for **LadyCallie** for betaing.

* * *

_"Adulthood means playing the game of What Is, and becoming more in the process - changing. And that's the easiest thing in the world to forget, which means it's the most important thing to remember"._ - Jacob Clifton

* * *

_Do you want to talk about it? _

_Absolutely. But not now._

_First thing tomorrow._

_It's a date._

It _had_ actually become a date, of sorts. A "friend date," Emily's inner Garcia thinks. _Any_ kind of date with Hotch is more than she's ever allowed herself to even entertain the thought of.

_JJ and WIll's wedding - in all it's impromptu, magical, simple glory, planned by Rossi and his team of elves - had gone so, so late into the night that Strauss had told the team to stand down for the following day. A "one day honeymoon" for the newlyweds, she called it. _

_Emily suspected _that _was Rossi's doing also. She'd seen them dancing, the section chief and one of the architects of the BAU; granted, Prentiss had danced with Rossi too - and Morgan, Reid, Garcia, Garcia and JJ, Kevin, Will, Henry, Jack, _Hotch _- but she'd seen the way Rossi and Strauss were looking at each other._

So much for the fraternization regs_, she mused._

_The wedding had been truly beautiful, all flowers and fairylights, moonlight and starshine, a surprise for JJ. They were all such a family, the Alpha Team of the BAU. The wedding not only further cemented that idea, it was always a shining display of the teams' mutual love and affection for one another. They'd eaten, drank, laughed, and danced into the wee small hours._

And, she thinks, if her own state had been any indication of the rest of the team, they all woke up with raging hangovers.

_She'd lain in bed, a hand over his eyes, her head throbbing. When her phone rang, she'd blindly reached for it, knocking a few books and an empty water glass off the dresser, even as she answered the call. She could hear Hotch's voice through the receiver as he listened to the bangs and crashes. Sergio, meanwhile, simply glared at her, turned in a circle, kneaded some blankets and went back to sleep._

"_Prentiss? Is everything alright? EMILY?"_

_She groaned. "Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop yelling."_

_He laughed in her ear, a deep, gentle rumbling. "Hangover?"_

"_Don't you have one?" she asked incredulously. When he didn't answer, she groaned again. "I hate you. I feel like my head is going to explode."_

_He kept his voice soft and mild. "So, if I said to you that I overslept, and forgot that Jack has a soccer game, and I need to postpone our date, you wouldn't mind?"_

_She bolted up in bed at the word "date." The room spun, and her stomach revolted violently. Sergio gave her another glare, and jumped down from the bed, stalking away to find some breakfast. Then she remembered. They were supposed to talk about what she'd been brooding over. And she'd jokingly called it a date. It took all her willpower to keep herself from vomiting. The hangover and a resurgence of nerves had her sick to her stomach._

_Hotch's voice sounded again in her ear, concerned. "Emily?"_

_She gulped. "Yes, here, sorry. Postponing is fine. I'm not really fit for company right now anyway."_

_He chuckled. "How about tonight? Want to grab a bite to eat, and we can talk about it? I can get Jessica to watch Jack."_

"_Come here for dinner." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She hadn't even thought them. "Uh, it'll be more relaxed," she added quickly, covering._

"_All right. Can I bring anything?"_

_Flopping back against the pillows, Emily squeezed her eyes shut. "I can't really think about food right now, but let's say you should bring dessert. I'll take care of everything else." _

"_Dessert," he confirmed. "Got it. Seven o'clock?"_

"_Sure," she said, biting back a groan as her stomach rolled. "If I don't answer the door, assume this goddamned hangover has killed me."_

_He barked out a laugh, and she winced. "Should I send medics?" When he heard her mutter something about 'never drinking again,' he smiled. "I recommend aspirin, some saltines and ginger ale, and then a large, greasy breakfast and a gallon of coffee. You'll be like new."_

"_Hotchner family hangover cure?" she quipped._

"_Well, my dad's was to just keep drinking, but it worked for me in college."_

_Chastened, she bit her lip. "So, I'll see you at seven?"_

"_It's a date," he replied gently._

They'd hung up moments later, but it had taken another twenty minutes for Emily to get herself out of bed. After stumbling to the bathroom and forcing down some aspirin, she'd rummaged through the cabinets of her subletted apartment, coming up with only a small bag of oyster crackers and a small bottle of plain seltzer. She had been considering looking for sunglasses and flip flops to drag herself down to the corner store for supplies when her doorbell had rung. It had taken everything she had not to grab her gun at the sound of an unexpected visitor. This was why she needed to leave. She saw vipers in every shadow.

_Looking through the peephole, she saw a delivery boy from the diner a few blocks away. Puzzled, she opened the door. "I'm sorry, I didn't order anything."_

"_Prentiss, 11D?"_

_Dumbfounded, she'd nodded._

_He'd handed her a bag and an extra large to-go cup of coffee. "Ordered online. All paid for, with tip. Have a nice day."_

_Still confused, Emily robotically took the food from him, and shut the door. She looked at the order slip, and saw a note at the bottom that had been added by the person who'd placed the order on the diner's website: "I thought this was easier than you making this all yourself, or going out for it. See you at 7 - Hotch."_

_He'd sent her breakfast. It was sweet, thoughtful, and entirely unexpected. Immediately, she'd fired off a text._

_thanks for the food. you didn't have to do that._

_Her phone vibrated moments later with his response, as she tucked in to her over easy eggs, hash browns, bacon and whole wheat toast. The team had had breakfast together enough times over _the years that she wasn't surprised Hotch would know how she liked her eggs, and that she preferred whole wheat toast to white. Sergio _rubbed against her legs, trying to lure her into sharing the bacon._

_anytime. i wanted to. see you tonight._

The breakfast and coffee, coupled with a blisteringly hot shower, had been as restorative as Hotch had promised. She'd gotten out and enjoyed the day, window shopping and ending up at a Farmer's Market.

But now, as the clock approaches 7:00, she is nervous. She doesn't know if the nerves are from what she has to tell him, or just that he's coming to her house, and she's making dinner. In all the time they've known each other, they've never dined together in private. It's always somewhere public, usually with the team, or at Rossi's. She remembers a Super Bowl party at a bar, her first year on the team. Hotch and Haley were still married, Garcia was ogling Morgan, and then JJ pulled them all into an horrific case. They always go out as a group, with a group; with chaperones. Never somewhere it's only the two of them without supervision.

She rolls her eyes at herself in the mirror, and mentally scolds herself to stop being such a teenager. They are friends, he is her boss, and they need to talk. This is a simple dinner between friends and colleagues, nothing more.

Right.

She chooses a long, empire waisted sleeveless dress of soft heathered grey cotton and jersey. The day has been warm, as late Spring in DC tends to be, and her balcony doors are wide open. The dress is comfortable and not too dressy, but a step up from her usually day-off uniform of jeans and a t-shirt. She is barefoot, and tosses her hair up and away from her neck and face with a clip. She will be cooking, and thinks the embarrassment of seeing him pull a strand of her hair out of his dinner will send her over the edge.

Promptly at seven, her buzzer rings. This time, she does not reach for her gun. She takes a moment, scooping Sergio up for a quick snuggle to calm herself. After he wriggles out of her arms, she checks the peep hole, and sees him. He has a paper bag in his hand from the bakery down the street. Standing on the other side of her door, Hotch shifts his weight from foot to foot. He looks almost….nervous.

Emily swings the door open, and they stand there looking at each other. She remembers the last time he stood outside her door - stone faced, dressed in a suit. Tonight, he is casual in jeans, a dark T-shirt, and an open button down. She is reminded of how he looked when she first returned from the "dead." She wonders if she should tell him to bring back the scruff and beard. She wonders what he would do if she told him how sexy it was.

Hotch drinks in the sight of her - she looks fresh and comfortable, and he cannot help but appreciate the scooped neckline of her dress. He has never been to her new apartment - the place she has been subletting since her return. The building is large, and old, but well maintained and has decent security.

"Come in," she says cordially. He hands her the bag - he got a variety of pastries, most of them chocolate, knowing her fondness - as he steps into the apartment, and she surprises him by kissing him on the cheek. She feels reckless and more than a little impulsive. She blames it on adrenaline and nerves, and not at all on feelings and impulses she has been sitting on for years.

He looks around. The apartment has hardwood floors and what appears to be original woodwork, but an open floor plan. He sees a spacious kitchen off to one side, and a large brick fireplace across from a comfortable-looking sectional couch. She has a small, but well appointed balcony that overlooks the city.

"Thank you for having me over," he says politely.

She cannot believe she succeeds in not rolling her eyes at the formality of his statement. "Hotch," she chides. "It's a night off. Let's just - enjoy each other's company, alright?" She hands him a glass of merlot, from a bottle she'd opened to breathe earlier. Meeting his eyes, she clinks her glass with his in an informal, unspoken toast, before drinking her wine. She nearly gulps, more than sips, but her nerves feel slightly frayed and she can see the questions in his eyes; they are written all over his face.

She gestures towards the peninsula that demarcates the edge of her kitchen space. It has a quartz countertop, and is high and wide enough that it can accommodate several high-backed stools and function as a breakfast bar. She has a bowl of olives, another bowl of spicy roasted nuts set out. They both take seats, and there are a few beats of awkward, uncomfortable silence. They both nibble on the snacks, to fill time, to be doing something. It feels like the first time they met, pleasantly staring at each other, each waiting for the other to spit it out. Every second they remain in silence, the awkwardness grows. He is waiting for her to tell him whatever she brought him here to hear, and she wants to talk about anything else.

"How was soccer?" she asks, plastering a bright, interested smile on her face.

"We don't really keep score, but Jack scored four goals," Hotch says with barely concealed pride. Then his expression changes. "Unfortunately, one of them was in the other team's net, because he forgot his position on the field."

She frowns empathetically, and drinks more wine. "But he put the ball in the net, so that's a positive!"

She makes him laugh, and he is grateful for it. He knows he does not laugh enough. He is trying to. He remembers Haley telling him to show Jack that his father isn't always so serious. He thinks Emily might be able to help him, in that regard. If…

"Indeed. We celebrated with Five Guys, and a double feature of _Cars_ and _Up_!"

"Holy Pixar, Batman," she replies.

"Jessica decided to come to the apartment, rather than having Jack go across town, so they finished _Up!,_ and here I am." Jessica kept telling him not to be late for his date. He kept telling her it wasn't _actually_ a date, even though that's exactly what he and Emily kept calling it.

"Did he and Henry have a good sleepover with Pen?" She knows what grown up, big girl sleepovers are like with their genius tech analyst. She imagines how much fun her friend must be as a host to a couple of little kids.

At the reception, Garcia mentioned taking Henry, to give the newlyweds a wedding night. Jack heard about the younger boy sleeping over at "Auntie Penny's" and wanted in on the action.

"Uh, they watched some _Doctor Who_ this morning and had chocolate chip pancakes and bacon, which were big hits. Garcia took Henry home when Jack and I left for soccer." In truth, Hotch had to bribe Jack with the Five Guys to get him to leave Garcia's apartment in the first place. He'd been fairly well ensconced in the marathoning of the British TV show. And besides, "Auntie Penny's" place was pretty cool, Jack kept saying.

"She's good with kids, our girl," Emily remarks.

He nods in agreement, a smirk forming on his face. Garcia had put on _Doctor Who_ to keep the boys quiet while she nursed her own hangover. "Did your breakfast help this morning?"

"Yes, and thank you, again," she says, hoping she hides her blush by drinking more wine. "You didn't have to do that."

"I had just as much champagne as you last night, and I woke up fine." He shrugs. "It was the least I could do."

She scowls, and slaps playfully at his arm. "Okay, I definitely hate you for the lack of hangover." She sighs, and he almost hears contentment in it. "The food and gigantic coffee did help, though. I had a nice day."

She worries over her lip, biting it, and Hotch sees her start to pick at her nails. Another tell. He wonders how many versions of whatever conversation she intends to have with them she has already had in her head.

The profiler in him knows to let her lead, that her nerves, whatever fears she's bringing into this will color the conversation. She may have tried to anticipate his responses, and has several scenarios in her head. Compartmentalizing has always been one of her strongest skills. He's always pictured it as boxes, filing cabinets in her mind. She takes what isn't useful, is too hurtful, too frightening, too horrifying, and files it away. Who knows how many files she's already in possession of for this scenario. He wants to be there for her, but knows she could escalate into an argument with him that will scuttle the entire thing.

The friend in him, the man, just wants to help her, to know whatever secrets have been haunting her. He watches her eyes, sees them dart around nervously, as though she cannot bring herself to look at him. _Is she afraid she'll lose her nerve?_ he wonders.

"Emily," he says softly. "Do you want to talk about whatever it is that's bothering you?"

Her eyes snap to his, and widen. She sighs. "I do, I swear." She gestures haplessly towards her refrigerator. "I bought a bunch of food and I'd like to be able to cook and eat it before we get into...it." Her hand clutches the wine bottle tightly, and seeming to realize it, she pours herself some more to drink.

He arches a brow, but otherwise keeps his face conspicuously deadpan. "Do I need to help you move a body?" He moves his head towards the balcony, gesturing to the street. "It's possible there's a shovel in my trunk."

She lets out a loud, raucous, shocked laugh. He never jokes, or rarely does. And now he is being almost audacious. "No," she says, still laughing. "It's nothing like that."

She begins to rise from her seat, wineglass in hand, and he rests a hand gently on her arm. His touch is light, a ghost near her skin. "Emily…"

He keeps saying her name. Her first name. He usually alternates between her first and surnames. But he keeps saying "Emily," like he's trying to remind her who she is. His voice sends unexpected shivers down her spine, and she finds she wants to close her eyes and revel in it.

Instead, she meets his eyes. "Hotch, I'm fine." She sees the doubt on his face. "Yes, something's bothering me, and I'd like to speak with you about it. I _will_ speak with you about it, I promise. Just - can we have dinner first?"

When Hotch gives her the smallest of nods, his face relaxing, she moves away from him, instantly regretting the loss of contact, however minimal it was.

The long hem of her dress brushes his skin where his pant leg has ridden up, and he hopes he hides the chill that courses through him. Everything about this evening feels heightened.

He watches her, momentarily mollified, as she practically dances around the kitchen, moving barefoot with a balletic ease as she pulls out pots and pans, ingredients, produce, meat. He chuckles into his wine.

"What?" she asks, glancing over her shoulder. His grin is infectious and she cannot help but mirror it. In spite of what she needs to speak with him about, she feels light, and easy. The dark, gaping hole in her soul, filled with bricks and lead, rocks and blood, bone and tears, a graveyard of regrets and mistakes; this feeling she has carried with her since she woke up at in the hospital in Boston - JJ and Hotch standing over her, looking both relieved, and grim - and did not lose when she gazed upon Doyle's bedraggled, lifeless corpse, is receding, if only for the moment.

It shouldn't be this easy, sitting with him as the sun sets, warm breezes drifting in from her open balcony doors as she cooks and they drink and smile at each other. He has a girlfriend, she is leaving; if she wasn't leaving, she'd still be his subordinate and nothing would change. He is too noble to cheat with her, too law-abiding to go against the fraternization rules; he respects her too much to ask her to transfer. _Theteam needs you too much, _he'd say, she thinks. She doesn't dare think about what it would be like if he said he needed her. He loves his job too much leave it.

Aaron Hotchner. He has been a plague on her life since the moment they met.

If he notices that her gaze lingers too long, that her eyes glance over her shoulder at him when he laughs, and meet his, and do not look away, he does not mention it. He merely sips his wine, regarding her over the rim of the glass.

"When I worked for your mother, I remember cooks, gardeners, housekeepers…"

Emily stops chopping vegetables and turns to face him, one hand on her hip, the other gesticulating with her knife. "What are you trying to say, Hotch? That I grew up a spoiled embassy brat who never had to lift a finger to meet her own needs?" She works hard to keep her tone light. She knows he is teasing her, and means no harm, but nearly forty years of mildly repressed parentally-directed anger doesn't go away after only a few months of Bureau-mandated therapy.

He knows her too well to rise to the thinly veiled bite in her voice. "I'm pleasantly surprised you can cook, is all."

She points at him with her knife, affecting her best glare, learned at the Ambassador's knee. _More like across a mile-long dinner table,_ she muses. "The summer before my senior year at Yale, Netta taught me how to fend for myself. She figured since I was choosing the unglamorous life of a law enforcement officer over a life in DC and international politics, I'd need to be able to feed myself."

Hotch smiles, again, some more. It feels good to smile.

_It's good to see him smile, _she thinks.

"Little did she know law enforcement officers subsist primarily on takeout, cereal, and frozen food," he replies, pouring more wine into his class. His car is parked out front, and he really should slow down on the drinking, but the summer breeze and the sight of her already have him feeling slightly drunk. _In for a penny…_

She makes a low humming noise of agreement in her throat and hoists the cutting board, and her ingredients, from the far counter to the center island at which he sits. She slides her own empty wine glass over to him and he pours her another obligingly.

He remembers Netta. She's been the Prentiss Family cook for years; she's like Cordon Bleu meets Julia Child by way of Richmond, and has travelled the world with the Ambassador and her family. She used to always make sure there was fresh coffee for the security staff, and used to slip him some cookies after a particularly trying shift - which was a frequent occurrence, when one worked for Ambassador Prentiss. Haley had often joked that she suspected Netta's cookies kept him working for the Ambassador longer than he should have, given the stress of that particular assignment.

"But it relaxes me." Emily's voice breaks him away from his thoughts.

"Did you cook a lot, in Paris?" he asks, his voice mild. They have rarely spoken of her time away, her time of death and hiding, her time away from them, from him_. _He knows she was in Paris, primarily. He knows she played a lot of online Scrabble with JJ, which, given JJ's schedule, young son, and the time difference, speaks volumes about the women's friendship. He knows she has bad days, when she tells him - and when she doesn't. He watches her knife hesitate, ever so slightly. She sets it down, reaches for her wine glass.

Emily drinks, eyes closed, nose in the glass, breathing deep. Not in a pretentious way, he knows. She is trying to find some calm against the panic that comes with the mention of her time spent "dead." He has watched her try to put those seven months behind her, try and put the years with JTF-12, with Doyle, with what they did to each other, behind her. He thinks that sometimes she is more successful than others.

"I had a small flat near Sacré-Cœur, in Montmatre." Her voice is quiet. "18th arrondissement. It had a tiny kitchen - very European with the combo washer-dryer in it. You could barely turn around in it without smacking into something." She chuckles, but he can tell her heart isn't in it. "But yes, I cooked. I couldn't have delivery guys coming there." Her eyes look haunted, distant, as if she can see some far away spectral place he cannot.

He reaches out, takes her hand. It feels brazen, more intimate than they usually allow themselves. Her eyes meet him, and a thousand words pass between them, unspoken. She speaks six languages, and yet he knows she's been having trouble finding the words she wants to say. Her whole house search, he knows, was about more than investing in some real estate. He wonders if she even knows the full extent of it.

_I missed you. I missed you too. Please talk to me. I don't know how. Be honest, even if it hurts. I will if you will._

It all passes between them, in the silence. There is a challenge in her eyes that he intends to meet. He's backed down for too long. So has she. He's grown tired of it.

He teaches Jack patience. Patience in all things. You can't always get what you want, as the song goes. He believes that to be true. Except he's been patient for six years, through a marriage, a divorce, working together, injuries, madmen, psychopaths, demons, both of them playing Icarus to Death's sun; her string of crappy dates, sort of boyfriends, men who she knew were wrong for her, but went for because she thought it was all she deserved. There is enough baggage between them to sink the Fifth Fleet. And there is Beth. Beth.

_Be honest, even if it hurts._

_I will if you will_.


	2. I Saw Where I Didn't Want to Go

Hotch squeezes her hand and lets her go, and is surprised at the gut-punch he feels in doing so. He's sent her away to save her life, but now, the very act of letting go of her hand - _of letting her go,_ his mind chides him - feels like a gargantuan task. He can still feel her skin on his, and his warmth radiates up her bare arm. She clears her throat, and resumes chopping scallions.

"So," he says, maneuvering the conversation back to safer territory for now. "What're you intending to feed me?"

"I hit the Farmer's Market this afternoon," she remarks. She'd needed to stretch her legs. She had been feeling antsy under the weight of her decision more than she had felt hungover after the wedding. "So I grabbed a Spring mix, some radishes, carrots, heirloom tomatoes…"

He regards her speculatively. "You're feeding me salad?"

Emily rolls her eyes. "Stop being such a _man_. I got meat and potatoes for you too." Deftly, she reaches over and fires up the gas on her range. With a whoosh and a hiss, fire lights under a grill pan she's laid across two burners. He watches as she brushes some oil on the grill, and strips the packaging from a quartet of smoked sausages.

He glances at the discarded label. "Chardonnay and apple smoked sausage?"

"Aaron Hotchner," she scolds, and he tries to remember the last time she said his first name.

_Last night, as they danced. Beth had taken a sleepy Jack and Henry to Garcia's for a sleepover. She was uncomfortable around Team BAU, Hotch knew. He knew she felt like an outsider. After a flurry of hugs and kisses and Garcia tipsily digging out her spare keys, Beth had left with the boys. Kevin and his date had left, JJ's mom had begged off for some sleep, leaving just the BAU team and Strauss. _

_The caterers were cleaning up, and the night had turned cooler, but the music played on, and like any good Rossi party, there was plenty of wine. So they stayed, and they drank - except for Erin - and they danced. There was such joy, such peace among their strange, wonderful, growing family. Morgan and Garcia, soulmates in a strange, cosmic, wonderful way; the newlyweds, Will and JJ, happy and relieved, healthy, safe in each other's arms; Reid, growing older, wiser than all of them and still so gloriously naive in ways that went beyond endearing; Rossi, friend, mentor, father-figure to some, their host, as he danced with their Section Chief, a longtime friend. Hotch had found himself dancing with Prentiss again._

_He wasn't familiar with the song, but it was haunting and simple, elegant, and beautiful. The BAU team was all varying degrees of tipsy or drunk, and _happy_. It had been a hell of a few days - a hell of a few years - and they'd all more than earned some peace and happiness, if even for a moment. _

_Prentiss settled in his arms, and he couldn't help but notice - again - how natural the fit. Her face was flushed from dancing and too much wine. Her feet were bare, her heels long since discarded._

"_Are you cold?" he asked softly, his lips along side her ear as they moved._

_She shrugged, and closed the centimeters' distance between their bodies. She didn't care about rules, or Strauss, or the myriad of questions she was going to get from everyone later. A chapter of her life was coming to an end, and she wanted to wring everything she could from it. "I'm fine, Aaron," she murmured in reply._

_Her low voice saying his name sent chills across his skin and down his spine, and he held her more tightly._

"Do you really think I'm trying to poison you?" Emily asks with a laugh, tossing the meat on the grill.

Pulled from his reverie, he keeps his face neutral - he hopes _- _and simply says, "I've just never seen these before."

"Prepare to be dazzled," she chides. "They're amazing."

Another pan, more oil, more heat. She tumbles in a full package of gnocchi.

He can't help himself. "Aren't you supposed to boil those?"

"Hotch!" she cries, exasperated.

He holds his hands up, placating and apologetic. She rewards him with a smile, then gestures with the knife to her balcony and the table and chairs she has out there. "Set the table, will you?" She directs him to all the places in her kitchen he can find what he needs.

He busies himself with plates, forks, knives, wine and water glasses. The merlot they've been drinking as she cooks is nearly gone. "What do you want with dinner?" He thinks of the dubious sausages. "Chardonnay?"

"Pinot grigio," she replies as she shakes a small mason jar vigorously. Good God, she's even making the salad dressing. He stops the words "you really _can_ cook," on the tip of his tongue, and fetches the wine.

Within ten minutes, she's bringing things out to the balcony, setting them on a side table from which they can serve themselves. She turns toward him, and sees that's he's holding her chair for her. _Always the consummate gentleman,_ she thinks, sliding into the seat as he pushes the chair in for her.

They serve themselves, her Farmer's Market salad and homemade spicy dressing, grilled meat and fried gnocchi. She watches him, bemused, as he tastes everything she's prepared. She knows him well enough to know he's keeping his face politely neutral. But when he tastes everything, surprise and delight immediately replace his carefully schooled expression.

She nearly snorts with satisfaction, and covers by taking a sip of her wine. "I _told_ you I wasn't going to poison you."

"You have my sincere apologies," he replies as she digs in to her own meal. They eat with gusto and in companionable silence. They are both hungry, and let themselves enjoy the company, the weather; they let the food sop up some of the pre-dinner wine. She wants a relatively clear head when she tells him what she needs to say.

He wants to hear her, clearly, to listen, to be there for her. To be what she needs. He eats the last morsel off his plate. "This is very good. Thank you for dinner." He catches her eye. "We could have gone out, or ordered in, but I suspect you needed to relax before you tell me what's going on."

She sighs and sets down her fork. "Don't profile me, Hotch."

"Emily," he says gently. "I know something's bothering you. It's been bothering you for quite some time." She won't meet his eyes, and for the second time that evening, he takes her hand. "Please."

His voice is soft, almost pleading. His eyes are gentle and understanding, and goddammit, she wishes this could some how be easier. She can see the road of her life in the rear view mirror, the string of mistakes they've made, the could have beens and never weres. She can see her regrets, her sins, her good intentions and wishes all smashed on the ground, broken beyond repair.

He keeps looking at her.

_Be honest, even if it hurts._

_I will if you will_.

She takes a deep breath. "Clyde Easter was promoted, at Interpol. He's now Section Chief of the Western European theater."

Hotch nods, but says nothing. He merely continues watching her, silently. He does not let go of her hand.

"He wants me to take over his position as head of the London office."

His throat slams shut and his stomach drops so far he suspects he'll need an archeological expedition to recover it. He doesn't know if his face stays in the neutral mask he has perfected over the years. He hardly cares. "Have you accepted?"

She wants to look away, since this feels like a betrayal of him, of the team, of everything he did to keep her alive and everything she put them through - but she can't. "I told him I'd think about it."

He sighs, and can't help but sound more than a bit defeated. "I'm sorry you're unhappy here."

"It's so much more complicated than that." Emily all but groans it, pushing back from the table. She needs to stand. She needs to move. "I love the team." _You love more than just the team as a whole, _she thinks to herself. "I think the work we do is so important, and you are all my family."

"But you want to leave." The words are cautious, almost flat. He stays seated.

She has deja vu, hears her conversation with Derek from before the wedding. She was only half honest with him. She forces herself to be more honest with Hotch. "Ever since I got back, it's been different." She sees on his face that he wants to argue. "You know it's true." The words on the tip of her tongue, clawing to get out, are painful. "I'm different. I've changed."

"You went through a traumatic event," he begins, rising, but his words sound hollow and cliched, even to his ears. She isn't wrong. She's kept herself at a certain distance; often times he's gotten the impression she's going through the motions, a kind of play-acting, moving through the scenes of the life she used to have, trying to remember the steps.

"I died, Hotch." She says the words with finality. "Emily Prentiss died." _Lauren Reynolds is dead._ "She died."

That she refers to herself in the third person does not go unnoticed.

"They brought you back." He stands apart from her, just out of reach. The profiler in her can't help but notice that. Her fingers itch to touch him, to ground herself and him and them, to feel something, and her rational mind is glad he's far enough away.

"Did they? They got my body working again. They restarted my heart, kept my brain alive." _Left me with scars._ No, that wasn't quite right - _Ian _left her with _so_ many scars, only a few of which she can actually see when she looks in the mirror. She is damaged - she always has been, but now the damage is visible. She cannot hide it, not from herself, or from anyone who looks at her.

She thinks of a quote she heard once, during some weekend sci-fi film and tv marathon thing she'd done with Garcia and Reid. "But that's just - organs, synapses. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh."

Hotch sucks in a sharp breath at her words, and the guilt washes over her. She knows she's hurting him. They are very bad at keeping their relationship and feelings on the correct side of the boundary, and very good at hurting each other, and themselves. She looks out, towards the lights of the city, twinkling in the twilight against the nearly-set sun.

"First I was recovering, then I was hiding, just surviving." She laughs bitterly, coldly. "Barely doing either. Certainly not living. I couldn't be Emily - I had three aliases, but none of them were me. Then all of the sudden I was back and we were looking for Declan, and Doyle was dead, _finally_ dead. I hoped that would be enough." She looks back at him and knows he understands.

Of course _that _he would understand. Her own personal demon, hell personified, died, and it didn't fix nearly as much as she'd hoped. It feels like Doyle had broken something, and even the solace gleaned from the knowledge he was too far beyond her to cause her any more pain did nothing to fix the constant ache.

Hotch understands the feeling well. In his darkest moments, regardless of Jack's connections to the area, he's wondered if it wouldn't have been better if they'd just left, gone somewhere else and started entirely fresh and new. But all his son's memories of Haley are here, and so they'd stayed. Years later, he doesn't regret it, necessarily, but he knows that staying felt like hell at the time.

"The house," he murmurs. "You were hoping roots would help."

She nods wordlessly. Of course he understands her. It's why they've always gotten along, why they formed such a bond. They are alike, Aaron Hotchner and Emily Prentiss. Damaged souls, broken mirrors, trying to do more than simply survive. He has his son, and Beth, and she envies him that he has found a way through the darkness. That he has found light. He deserves it.

"Are you going to accept Easter's offer?"

"I don't know," she replies, and can see the doubt in his eyes. "Honestly, I don't know. I'm tempted. DC - it's too much of a reminder of everything that happened."

"You died in Boston, Emily."

She stops, huffs out a breathless, shocked laugh. "Was that an attempt at a joke?"

He shrugs, and fills both their wine glasses. To hell with sobriety. He'll call a cab. She is leaving, again.

"Hotch." When he turns, she is there, so close to him he can feel the heat of her body radiating from her. "I don't want to leave you. But I can't stay."

_I don't want to leave you._ She doesn't say "leave the team," or "leave the BAU." Her eyes are big, sad, and full of tears. He can see her pain, can practically touch it. He's never realized, all year, even when she would open up to him, how bad things were for her. How has he not seen?

Maybe he didn't want to, he realizes.

Before he even registers that he is moving, he sets down his wine glass and kisses her. To hell with propriety. He feels and hears her gasp against his mouth and for a second, a split, microscopic second he is terrified that he's entirely misread the situation, misinterpreted what it felt as though their years of friendship were leading to. But then he feels her sigh, and her lips are pliant and willing against his. Her arms come around him, and she grips his shoulder. The nails of her other hand scrape against the sensitive skin at the nape of his neck and chills race down his spine. The sensation is both erotic and addicting. Her body seems to wrap around his, as her breasts press to his chest, hips and waists and torsos melding and combining and he wonders where he stops and her body begins. Their tongues do battle, teeth scrape lips, nipping and teasing. They are Aaron and Emily and this is a moment they have been journeying towards since their first meeting. They are not gentle. They _demand._

He cups her head gently in one hand, his other settled firmly at the base of her spine, anchoring her to him. She surrounds him, her hair smelling of jasmine and peonies, her skin of vanilla. She tastes like wine and spices, delicate and bold. She is Emily, and she is in his arms, and the thought _Why didn't we do this sooner_? pops into his head, unbidden.

She has wanted this for so long. She doesn't know when, exactly, she started wanting him, but she has, for ages. She's cared for him for even longer. She does not let herself entertain thoughts of love. It is too painful, and she has lost too much of herself. But he is Aaron and he is here, and the smell of cherry blossoms wafts up from the street, and his lips and his tongue and his hands are - _oh God. Dear sweet Jesus. Thank you._ His hands are suddenly everywhere and she feels a fire that she thought long since extinguished.

Then she rips away from him, almost violently. Her chest heaves, her cheeks feel hot. She drags her eyes to meet him, sees he is panting, that his hair is disheveled, his clothing rumpled, his lips redder than normal.

"Hotch…you…Beth…" She cannot help but stammer. She thinks she might be going into shock. Aaron Hotchner, her friend, her boss - another woman's boyfriend - just kissed her like she's never been kissed.

He drags a hand through his hair. "Beth and I broke up last night."

_He shared a cab with Garcia, intending to give Jack one last kiss goodnight and get a ride home with Beth. Beth, who he always considered kind, and sweet, sassy and fun. With a gentle soul and affection for his son, on paper she should have been enough to make him happy, but something always felt like it was missing. He never felt any fire, any spark. _

_He kissed Jack, asleep on Garcia's couch underneath a big blue fleece Doctor Who blanket, and quietly snuck out with Beth. They were halfway to his apartment before she spoke._

"_Aaron?"_

"_Hmm?"_

"_Did you enjoy yourself tonight?"_

_He looked at her, nodding. "The wedding went well. It's great that JJ and Will finally get to move into this chapter of their lives."_

"_They've been together a while, haven't they?" Her eyes never left the road, and her voice sounded strained._

"_Five years." He frowned. "Beth, is everything alright?"_

_She ignored his question. "Dave did a nice job with the wedding. It's amazing he pulled everything together so quickly."_

_Hotch arched a brow, but responded. "Being a best-selling author has its perks, apparently."_

"_I never understood the dynamic of your team until tonight," she said, pulling on to his street. "I mean, I met them all at the race, but - you all are such a family."_

"_We've been together a long time." He kept his voice neutral, letting her lead the conversation. _

"_And you have to trust each other, because of what you do." She stopped the car in front of his building._

"_Implicitly. Our lives are in each other's hands every time we go out on a case. I'm the team leader, but we all look out for one another."_

_She sighed, and looked at him. "I don't belong in your world, Aaron."_

_He frowned._

_Beth laughed to herself, incredulous. "I can't believe it - I'm actually jealous. I'm jealous of your entire team. And I know it's petty, and illogical, but it's there." She took his hand. "They know you in a way I don't think I ever will. I was prepared - happy, even - to be second fiddle to Jack. He is an amazing little boy, and you love him so much. Of course he should be your first priority." She dropped his hand, leaned across the divider, and placed a chaste kiss on his mouth. "But I wasn't prepared to be the eighth wheel with you and your team. I don't think I can do it."_

"_This is - you're breaking up with me?" he asked. He felt guilty he didn't feel more upset._

"_You are an amazing man, Aaron Hotchner," she told him with a sad smile. "And I think you have an amazing capacity for love. I'm jealous of the woman who will one day be on the receiving end of that love." Her hand came along side his face. "But I think we both know that woman is not me."_

Emily blinks, rapidly. Between her nerves, all the wine, the surprise of being kissed, and now his news, she thinks she might be in shock. And drunk. "I'm sorry," she says, wrotely. She can't find any other words.

He shrugs. "We both knew it wasn't right."

A thought occurs to her, and she folds her arms across her chest, one hip cocked. "Did you tell me that to get me to stay?"

He's lying if he says no, if he says he isn't considering the possibility. "I didn't want you to think there was anything - untoward about what just happened." He smirks; he can't help it. "But are you going to?"

Emily sighs, and feels her lips twitching. "No. I don't know." She sighs again, rubbing her hands over her bare arms. The night air is cool. "Help me clear the table."

They bring everything inside in silence, putting away leftovers, putting dishes in the dishwasher. She disappears for a moment, comes back wearing fuzzy socks and a cardigan over her long dress. She gestures to her fireplace. "Can you get that going?"

"Don't want to shut the doors?" he asks, crouching before the hearth.

She is in the kitchen, pouring them both some scotch. "I like the fresh air."

He hasn't lit a fire in years, since he and Haley lived together. Before the divorce, before Foyet and protective custody. Before he was too late, and he couldn't save Haley. He couldn't save Jack's mother. Two and a half years later, he still feels like he failed his son.

He lights a match, and it flares to life in front of his face. Within seconds, the fire roars, and Hotch moves to sit beside her on the couch, a respectable distance between them. She has curled up on the couch, legs tucked underneath her. She hands him his scotch and his fingers brush hers as he accepts. Her skin is soft, and he wants to yank her into his lap. He doesn't.

"I'm sorry that I didn't realize how much pain you were in," he says softly, staring into the flames. He brings the scotch to his lips, holding the woodsy taste in his mouth and relishing the slight burn as it goes down his throat.

"Hotch." Her voice is gentle and he thinks it sounds like the scotch tastes, smooth and deep, but with a biting sharpness. "It's not like everything's been unrelentingly awful since I came back. But I'd be lying if I said I felt like I belonged here."

"You do, though." He turns and looks at her. "You belong with the team." He doesn't go so far as to say she belongs with him - he has never been one to come on that strongly. "I'm not saying you need to do something you're uncomfortable with to protect other people's feelings, but you know the team is going to be hurt if you leave."

"I know. I just feel like this is something I have to do." She throws caution to the wind - they've already kissed - and scoots closer to him. She hooks an arm around his bicep and rests her head on his shoulder. Without either of them thinking about it, their fingers intertwine, like it is the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it is. "I'm going to miss you all, so much."

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head, breathing her in. It feels so normal, so right, that they are here on a couch curled up together, bellies full, heads swimming with wine and scotch. The fire is warm, the breeze smells slightly sweet, and he cannot get over just how _right_ she feels pressed against him. Though it means letting go of her hand, he wraps his arm around her shoulders and settles her against his chest.

She feels his heartbeat, and closes her eyes, savoring his warmth and the warmth of the fire. They've crossed a line, but she's leaving. She still doesn't know if London is the right answer for her, but she knows staying in DC is the wrong one. Even though everyone she loves is here. Even though this man is there, this man she's worked with for over five years, with whom she's been through so much; this man who currently is holding her like she's all he wants in the world. She has seen him bleed, seen him almost die, more than once - stabbing, car bomb; the list is longer than it should be. She has seen him comfort the grieving, and then single-handedly take down offenders. She has seen him weep, seen him be reckless. He has lost, and grieved, more than any individual should. But he has come out the other side of it, and is here. With her.

He looks down and notices a healing wound on the back of her neck, exposed by her carelessly upswept hair. He assumes it is an injury she sustained in the blast at the bank. A pang goes through him, sharp and painful, when he thinks about how much he could have lost in that explosion.

_Garcia standing before him, eyes wide with tears after the blast. "I can't find Emily." His heart stops._

He thinks about how many times he's almost lost the members of his team, about how many times they've sustained serious injuries. His arms tighten around Emily involuntarily as he thinks about all the battles he's seen her fight and win, paying for those wins with her own blood.

He's listened to her be beaten, as she protected Reid and begged him - _she knew he'd be listening - _to not rush to her rescue; even though she'd sustained a head injury, broken ribs, internal bruising, and a black eye, all to protect a member of her team and the innocents inside the compound. He's watched her body loaded into an ambulance, a table leg sticking out of her abdomen, blood everywhere, as she laid dying, all for the love of them. He's seen her survive a car accident, altercations with suspects and killers. He's seen her shed far too much blood, but he's seen her survive.

She feels his hold on her tighten and she gently strokes his arm. "Everything alright?"

He brushes his lips lightly over hers. "Just thinking."

"About kissing me again?" Her voice is teasing, but there is an air of trepidation in her tone.

"Do you want me not to?" It almost sounds like a challenge.

"I just don't know if it's a good idea," she replies. They've both been hurt more than enough for one lifetime. "London isn't exactly at the other end of the DC Metro."

"I thought you weren't sure about London, just getting out of DC." He rests his cheek atop her head, his words rumbling through her.

She sits up, looking him in the eye. "What's your point?"

"Emily." Her name crosses his lips like a prayer. "You are a brilliant profiler and former intelligence officer who speaks six languages. DC and London aren't the only two places in the world with law enforcement and intelligence work."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm not exactly angling to run the branch office in Duluth."

"I know some perfectly lovely people in Duluth," he retorts blandly. His hand comes up to cup her cheek, and he watches the firelight dance in her eyes. "What about New York?"

"Are they still looking for someone, after Derek turned them down a million times?" She doesn't know where he's going with this.

"I can ask around, if that's what you want," Hotch replies. Then he smiles slyly. "But I was more thinking of the Interpol office at the UN."

A smile crosses her face before she can stop it. "Aaron Hotchner, you are brilliant!" She kisses him soundly before jumping off the couch and dashing for her phone. She's nearly hit send on the call when she stops. "Wait, how do I even know if there's an opening there?"

"Gideon used to tell Reid to 'see the whole board.'" He rises from the couch and crosses to her, settling his hands on her hips. He lays his lips, whisper soft, against the skin of her neck, moves his way up to under her ear. "You're a chess player. Move the pieces around until you win."

She ponders this, through the haze of arousal and lust that floods her as he kisses her skin. "So, you're saying I should suggest that Easter promote whoever's running the New York office to London, and give me New York."

He smiles against her skin. "There's my girl."

She closes her eyes, revelling in the sensations that course through her. Wherever this version of him has been hiding, she wants to keep him. "Wait." She lays her hands on his shoulders. "New York isn't exactly around the corner either."

"New York is a train ride away," he replies. "I can be there every chance I have."

Her eyes meet his. "But, you have Jack, and…"

"Jack knows you," is his simple reply. "And what seven year old boy wouldn't love a train trip and some time in New York City?" His lips brush across her forehead. "Jessica's got some friends there - I'm sure she'd come, on occassion, so you and I could spend some time together, just the two of us. She's also more than happy to have Jack over whenever."

She cannot believe her luck, or his simple faith that this is something they can do. "Hotch." She blushes, corrects herself. Hotch is her boss. The man currently kissing her palm and nibbling at her wrist is _not_ her boss. "Aaron. We don't even know what _this_ is."

He stops his ministrations, and his forehead comes to rest against hers. "I know that I care about you. I know that I want you to be happy, and I want to be with you, to see where this road leads us." His words are nearly whisper quiet. He takes a deep breath. "Don't you?"

When his eyes meet hers, she sees trepidation in them. She brings her hands up to frame his face. "I am so fucked up…" she begins.

He ticks off on his fingers all the ways in which he is himself fucked up. "Single father; one failed marriage under my belt; multiple stab wound scars; lost some hearing from being blown up in an SUV; spent more than a year not exactly listening to you about taking care of myself, or believing you when you said I wasn't alone..." He grins devilishly at her. He should also add _got my ex-wife killed, left my son without a mother, and dated another woman because I thought I couldn't have you, _he thinks. "Need I continue? I can keep going."

She makes a show of considering his words, though she knows his jovial tone is a defense mechanism, that everything he just mentioned haunts him frequently. She wonders what his nightmares are like, and finds she has a deep need to soothe them. "You're right - you're some piece of work, Hotchner."

His lips hover millimeters above hers. "Are you sure you want to risk it?"

"Are you sure _you_ do?" She kisses him, because he's there, and because she can. "Are you sure we can pull this off?"

"Call Easter," he orders, affecting his best "Hotch" voice. "And we'll go from there."


	3. So I Took the Path Less Travelled On

"Let me make sure I understand this," Clyde says, drawing out the syllables. "You want me to call up the chap who runs Interpol in the Americas and tell him I want his top dog in New York to take over for me in London. And after that, I should suggest to him that you take over for said Top New York Dog." She hears him take a drink of what she figures is either tea, or an aged single malt scotch. "Do I have the gist of that into which you are trying to manipulate me? "

"What, you think I can run the London office but not the one at the UN?" she retorts, rolling her eyes at Hotch and stalking out on to the balcony.

"Not at all, my pet," he replies, and she hears ice clink in a glass. Scotch, then. "You will be superb wherever you go. If I might ask, though, why not London?"

She sighs, and casts a sidelong glance at the man sitting on her couch, who, at the very least, is making an effort to _appear _as though he isn't eavesdropping.

"Things have been….difficult, since Ian," she admits. Easter, for all his smarmy asshole-ishness, is an old friend and colleague. She's trusted him with her life - except for that time she thought he was informing on her to Doyle. "So getting out of DC wouldn't be the worst thing for me."

"But you don't want to be an ocean away from the BAU." He says the name of her division like it's some kind of distasteful tropical disease.

She sighs, and feels like she has to defend herself, and them. "They're my family, Clyde."

"Family is a weakness that your enemies can exploit, darling," he says evenly. "I thought Lauren Reynolds taught you that."

Letting out an offended, exasperated breath, she hisses into the phone. "You are a son of a bitch, Easter. Are you gonna recommend me for the job in New York, or not?"

"I've already sent off an email to the Director of the Americas, Emily." She can hear the indulgent smile in his voice. He is a shrewd man, and knows that the FBI's loss is his gain.

The reality, the finality of it, hits her like a baseball bat to the gut, and she has to stop herself from collapsing into one of her balcony chairs. She manages to stammer out a thank you, and feels Hotch's eyes on her from behind.

Clyde fills her stunned silence with something she takes to be a non sequitur, until she realizes that it isn't at all, and that he knows her weaknesses better than she does. "Did I ever tell you, darling, what your Agent Hotchner said to me when the mighty BAU was hunting for you and the not-so-dearly departed Mr. Doyle?"

She frowns, not sure how she feels about him calling Hotch hers. _What's so terrible about him being yours?_ Her inner voice is familiar, and yet she cannot place to whom it belongs. There is something in Easter's tone that makes her want to tell him not to share what he knows.

Not that Clyde Easter ever waited for anyone to tell him what to do. "My dear darling Emily - your Agent Hotchner told me, in a delightfully stark interrogation room at Logan International Airport, that if anything happened to you…" He pauses, and Emily is sure he is delighting in making her squirm. "He would, and I quote 'destroy' me. He said that was something I could 'count on.""

Her eyes snap to the man in question. Hotch's eyes meet hers, and she sees a thousand things cross his usually stoic, unreadable face. Perhaps he already is hers, and she is his, and they have been each other's for quite some time.

"I'd buy tickets to that dance," she manages to jest. She wonders if Easter can hear how forced she sounds.

"I'm sure you would," he replies smoothly. "I'll be in touch."

And just like that, the phone call ends, and her entire future is moving forward on a train she has set into motion, whether she is prepared for it or not. Never mind the man sitting on her couch, who is looking at her in a way that makes her feel at the same time precious and entirely exposed. She takes a deep breath, and forces herself to walk back to him.

"He's working on it," she says with a sheepish smile. "It's actually happening."

Without hesitation, he takes her hand, running his thumb lightly over her skin. "Are you happy about that?"

She cannot take her eyes off her hand, his fingers. She is both mesmerized by what he is doing to her, and terrified to meet his eyes. "It's bittersweet, you know? I'm crawling out of my skin being here, and I don't even recognize myself when I look in the mirror, but you guys are my family, my home, and-"

He gently slides his palm along her cheek, trying to get her to look at him. Her eyes have been darting all over the room, and she's started to pick at the nails of the hand he isn't holding. "Emily."

He says her name like it is a prayer, so soft and gentle she finds she wants to cry. She cannot help but nuzzle into his hand and her lips, almost of their own volition, lightly brush the skin of his palm.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," he says quietly when she finally looks at him. He tries not to think about how his hand is tingling from her kiss.

"Do you mean us, or Interpol?" she challenges, still leaning into his touch.

He shrugs, letting her words roll over him. He knows they are a defense mechanism, that her MO is to push people away when the going gets tough. "Either. Both."

She grips the hand that touches her face, but cannot bring herself to pull away from him. She has been drawn to him for years, and here they are, clearly stepping over a line, when she is about to leave. She who carries the names and memories of two dead women; she who carries the scars they earned. She knows he has scars of his own - can he really handle hers as well?

"This is all my fault," she whispers, her voice so hushed he has to lean in to hear her. Her eyes brim with tears, and when one spills over, he brushes it away with his thumb.

"What is?"

Emily waves a hand around vaguely, as though she is trying to conjure an answer. "This, me. That I died, that you and JJ had to lie, that the team thought I was dead, that I had to regain their trust. Seven months on the run and eight months back and I'm still so…" Lost. Damaged. Ruined. She does not know which word to choose, since they all apply.

"You're right here," he says, scooting closer to her, and she realizes she said at least some of what she was thinking out loud. He frames her face with his hands, their noses nearly touching. "With me." Tears spill from her eyes, and when she closes them, he kisses her eyelids, feather light and soft. He kisses her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. When she feels his lips on hers, the sob she has been holding in for over a year escapes, against her wishes. He swallows it, takes it into himself as he pulls her into his lap. He feels her body tremble and shudder with the force of her sobs, but she is eerily silent.

She instinctively wraps herself around him, hands tightly gripping his shirt as she buries her face against his neck and shoulder. Her tears feel like they're coming from the deepest part of her, a part she'd long since thought dead and buried. She can barely breathe, and she feels like she's breaking into a thousand tiny pieces. She wonders, dimly, if he'll be able to find all the pieces, or if, after this, she'll just be _more_ broken than she already was. She has for so long been in survival mode, she thinks she might be shattering apart now that she is being offered something like a real life.

She's felt broken for ages - since before she was impaled; before she went into exile; before Declan called Tom and she came back to the mistrust; before all she could offer were feeble apologies; before she had to walk into a small dark room where the fact that her own physical personification of Hell was chained to a table, disheveled and beaten, was not enough solace to stop the revulsion and fear from creeping back in. She wonders if she's always been broken, and if that's why she was Doyle's type. Not her hair, not her international connections and savvy - but that she'd been a broken soul, and he'd been drawn to broken souls.

Perhaps they're all just broken souls, in the end. Unfinished stories and shattered dreams, pieces to be put back together, or thrown in the trash.

Her tears soak his shirt, but Hotch doesn't care. He simply holds her and lets her weep. He strokes a hand through her hair, rubs her back lightly. At one point, he finds he is almost rocking her, like he does with Jack after the little boy has a nightmare. He whispers nonsense and love in her ear, soothing words and noises. He tells her she is not alone, that he's here, that he's not going to leave her. He presses kisses to the top of her head, to her temples. He holds her and lets her cry, and it feels like one of the hardest things he has ever done. He wants her tears to end and never return. He wants her not to hurt. But he knows this is likely something she's been forcing back for months, if not years, and that ultimately she will be the better for having gotten it out - even if it doesn't seem like that now.

He knows what is it like to lose yourself, to want a brand new life, and yet feel so utterly encumbered by the one you have. He wishes he had a surefire way to tell her it would all get better; but if Foyet and Haley, if Jack, if his family at the BAU - they way they rallied behind him, they way they would not let him give up on himself - have taught him anything, it's that there is no one way to get through, to learn how to do more than survive. He knows now, better than ever before, that life can be as beautiful as it is terrible, but that living is what happens in between the moments you have to survive. He thinks her entire life must feel like it's become something she has to survive, and if she has to go to New York to learn how to live again, then he will help her do that every way he knows how. And if she has to first let herself mourn everything she's lost, and everything she's been through, then he will hold her while she weeps, and hopefully help her realize she is not alone.

He remembers a conversation, years and lifetimes ago, his first case back after being stabbed. They spoke of the UNSUB and the case, and yet not; their words vague and veiled, and yet….not.

_He's got his answers. He killed the man who's haunted him. _

_What else is there? _

_The years of torture. _

_Guess he'll never get over that. _

_How could he? At least he doesn't have to feel alone anymore. _

_He doesn't have anyone. _

_He has Tommy. He's not alone. _

He wants her to start believing that _she_ is not alone, the way she made him believe he was not alone. He doesn't know how, though, other than to hold her.

Eventually her tears subside, but she is nearly hyperventilating from the effort. He makes her sit up a bit, but keeps her in his lap, and begins rubbing her back a bit more vigorously. "Sweetheart, take slow deep breaths for me," he commands, his tone firm but gentle. "You're okay. I've got you. I need you to slow your breathing."

"Can't," she manages, her voice raw from crying. Panicking, she presses a hand to her chest.

"Yes you can." He kisses her temple, makes her look at him with her swollen, puffy, red eyes. He thinks she is beautiful. He keeps her gaze, breathes as he has instructed her to. He breathes in slowly, counting to seven in his head, then exhaling as slowly as possible, counting silently to a fast eleven. He can't remember where he learned this particular technique, but knows it works for divers, and has a calming effect.

She cannot help but mimic him, taking quite possibly the longest, slowest deep breaths of her life. She is shocked at how well it works, at how in nearly a minute her breathing feels normal. She all but collapses against him, exhausted. His arms come around her instantly and he settles back against the couch, making them both comfortable.

"I'm sorry," she croaks, eventually, resting her head against the hollow of his shoulder.

He shushes her, and presses his lips against the crown of her head. "There's no need." He knows he should tell her to go get some water and aspirin, but the feel of her in his arms is so unutterably perfect he simply cuddles her closer, tugging a blanket from the back of the couch around them.

She snuggles into him and closes her eyes. Her head is pounding, and she's sure she looks a mess from a serious bout of ugly crying, but this is the most herself she has felt in months. And yet, there is still the burn in her, a pain in her abdomen. She knows it is a phantom pain behind a mottled scar, and yet she feels it. She feels so much, and nothing at all.

All her life she has compartmentalized, at first being who she was bred to be - the Ambassador's perfect daughter - until that duty was so stifling she thought she might die from it. So she changed herself, forgoing the career in politics that had been expected of her for one in law enforcement. But her mother's choices for her - an international upbringing, for one - landed her squarely in Interpol's sights, and suddenly she'd been at a CIA black site in Poland getting trained alongside MI-6, CIA, and Interpol operatives. Among other things, in Poland she learned to be someone else.

Emily Prentiss had gone so far under cover it was hard to remember that Lauren Reynolds was a false persona. In truth, she had liked being Lauren, had become addicted to the danger, to the lifestyle she led - and to Ian. Lauren had loved Ian, given herself to him, body, heart, and mind, and when Lauren had been made to die, Emily was forced to deal with the consequences.

She knows she is still dealing with them to this day - the sins of her past. So many sins that confession must surely be worthless. Her fingers play with the collar of Hotch's open button-down shirt as she listens to his heart beat. Does he know how many black marks she carries on her soul, how much scar tissue has built up around her heart? Does he know that by acting on what they've been denying for so long, he has stepped into the muck that is her past, her life, her soul? They have known each other for years and never allowed themselves to cross this line before tonight. She wonders how many other boundaries she can cross with him, what maps they will create, wars they will wage, redistributing power and assets - the borders of themselves remarked, redefined; a new world.

Shocked at the surge of bravery she suddenly feels in the safety of his arms, she tilts her head up to look at him. "It's my fault I died," she murmurs, a continuation of what she tried to say before she broke down. She feels him tense, knows he will try to stop her from what he thinks is self-destructive thinking. And while she could medal, were destructive thinking an Olympic sport, she _has_ to make him understand. She sits up, looks him squarely in the eyes before he can open his mouth. Her head pounds with a headache and she feels heavy and foggy. All she wants to do is sleep, and still she _has_ to make him understand.

"I had him in a choke hold," she says, making her report, a debrief nearly two years overdue. "I told him I'd beaten him, that I'd won." Lauren had loved him and Emily had to carry the scars of that love, of what it meant to love a monster. "And then the lights went out and I thought, '_They're here. Just a little bit longer_.' I knew you were coming."

She means you and _you_ and he knows she means both, and can't help but wish he'd been faster, that he'd seen it all sooner, that he'd been able to help her before she'd felt the need to go off on a one-woman mission. He tamps down on all the words he wants to say to her, knowing it is his time to listen.

"But he used the instant of the blackout to try and get the upperhand, and so we fought, again. We'd broken a table during the fight, there were pieces of wood everywhere, and so I grabbed a...table leg, or something."

He cannot take his eyes off of her face as she tells her story, and it seems as though her dark eyes go nearly black, depthless pools of memory. She has pulled away from him, extracted herself from around him as she makes her confession, like she thinks she needs to prove she can hold her own. His fingers twitch to touch her, and he balls his hands into fists.

"I just kept hitting him over, and over, and over." The words burn coming out of her mouth, the burn of her scar forcing it's way up from the depths of her, the memories acid and poison. "One time, I hit him so hard the momentum carried the wood out of my hands, and it fell to the floor."

Hotch knows all this - CSU had reconstructed the scene, and they'd matched the weapon removed from Emily's chest to the shattered table.

She laughs, mirthlessly. "It was a split second, but instead of diving for it, I turned, to see if you all were coming down the hall. And in that moment, when I was weak and didn't make sure he was secure, he stabbed me. I gave him the weapon he used to kill me, Aaron."

His heart breaks all over again, for her. "You did no such thing," he tells her, when he can find words. "There was a struggle and he got the upper hand."

"But I _had_ him," she insists.

"You were handcuffed," he replies, and tries not to recall the image of her, bloody and beaten, the life literally bleeding out of her, with a wooden chair leg sticking out of her abdomen. The paramedics had needed bolt cutters from a fire truck that responded with the LEOs, to get the cuffs off of her so that they would run IVs. Anything to try and keep her alive long enough to get her to the hospital.

Unaware of of what spinning through his mind, she continued. "And then I lost my weapon and he used it against me. You know as well as I do that Morgan busts trainees' asses into the ground for the kind of mistake."

"I wasn't aware that Morgan has been using broken pieces of lumber in his training exercises," he quips, feebly.

"Aaron -"

"Emily, _stop_, please." He does not know how to make her understand. He only knows he has a desperate need to stop her pain. He knows she once told Garcia that she knew what the world could do to a little girl who only saw beauty in it, and he wants nothing more than to show her that again, even though he knows, _he knows,_ the horrors and monsters and worse that the world holds. He wants her to see that beauty again, in herself most of all.

"Sweetheart…" He does not know when she became 'sweetheart' to him, just knows that she is and it feels _right_. "I could tell you what we'd tell a victim - that it wasn't your fault, that there was nothing you could have done. But I think you know that, intellectually. I think there's a part of you that wants me to say it _was_ your fault. I think you've been waiting for over a year for someone to ask you what the fuck you were thinking, going off on your own, and getting yourself killed."

Her jaw drops a little, and he knows he is right, and presses on. "But I'm not going to tell you that either. Because what I want to tell you is that _it doesn't matter_ that you dropped the weapon, or that he got the upper hand. _It doesn't matter_ that you never told us about Lauren Reynolds and Valhalla and JTF-12. _It doesn't matter_ that JJ and I chose to keep you safe and alive, even though it meant lying to the team. _None of it _fucking _matters,_ because you are alive, and he is not. _He_ didn't get hungover last night after dancing into the wee hours, or get a greasy breakfast delivered this morning. _He_ didn't get to walk under the cherry blossoms and visit a Farmer's Market. _He_ didn't get to cook a meal, and drink too much wine. He doesn't get to sit here, in front of this fire."

His hands grip hers so tightly she thinks she has lost all blood flow to them, but she does not care. His words are both harsh and a balm, and she wants to wrap herself inside them.

Aaron lifts her palms to his mouth, brushing his lips reverently across her sensitive skin. "_You_ survived. _You_ lived. _You_ won." He punctuates each sentence with a kiss - _and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss _- and she is rapt in her attention. "You won, because _you_ fought. You won, because _you_ have a family that loves you, that fought for you. You won, because every day since you've been back you've kept fighting - fighting to regain trust that was never truly lost, just a little damaged; fighting to get killers off the streets, to find justice for the victims."

He takes a deep breath. "When we couldn't find you, I told the team to profile Doyle as the UNSUB, and you as the victim. But I was wrong."

She isn't sure which knocks her on her proverbial ass harder - that he is admitting less than papal infallibility, or hearing that her team thought of her as a victim.

"You were never a victim, Emily." His voice is soft, apologetic and loving. "And it's time you stopped thinking of yourself as one."

His words ring in her ears, and she can practically see them hanging in the air. She is surprised to find she is breathing heavily, like she has been running. She lets out a shaky laugh. "I...don't know that I've ever heard you say so much in a single chunk."

He laughs, in spite of, or perhaps because of everything. "Did any of it sink in?"

She bites her lips, "I want it to - is that enough?"

It has to be. He leans in to her, brushes his lips across hers. "For now."


	4. Let My Stories Be Whispered When Im Gone

**Author's Note**: Thanks so much to everyone for your reviews and support. I'm so glad everyone's enjoying this.

* * *

_The honeymoon is definitely over_, Emily thinks as she enters the Quantico offices used by the BAU. The rest of her team is already here - she knows that Garcia, dependable as the sunrise, is already in her lair; she sees Reid, smiling and well rested, and JJ, effulgently content, chatting amiably in the bullpen. Rossi's blinds are open, and she can see him pouring over files. Further down the catwalk, Morgan's office door is open, and she knows her partner is in as well. Her eyes drift over to Hotch's office, though she already knows he is there.

Here, he is Hotch.

Last night, he was Aaron.

The habit of compartmentalization is hard to break, and is also necessary, she knows. He will send her resignation to Strauss today, after they tell the team, but she still will have two weeks as a member of the BAU. Whatever they started last night, however overdue, is still against regulations, and she's not looking to scuttle his career.

Here, he must be Hotch. Hotch, her boss, who orders her to negotiate face-to-face with serial killers; who goes through the door with her, guns blazing. Hotch, who tells her to follow his orders no matter how angry they make her; who stays late and arrives early and who always wants to protect his team. Hotch, who asked her to rethink her resignation after that first year; who enlisted a State Department representative to mastermind her deep cover exile.

Although, maybe it was Aaron who did that, who risked so much and lied to so many to save her.

Last night, Aaron held her, and spoke to her with kind words, looked at her with soft eyes, and touched her with gentle hands. He dried her tears, made her laugh. He didn't let her hide from her ghosts, from the demons to whom she knows she gives so much power. Moreover, he stayed with her - _he stayed - _until well after midnight. Jessica, with near unrealistic patience, had told her brother-in-law to take all the time he needed. And he had, but he'd taken all the time _she _needed. They had tea, and talked of simpler things - _shoes, and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings_ - and did not mention again her move, or her much-needed break down. She still feels shattered, worn out and uneasy, but knows that could be nerves as much as anything else.

She reminds herself to not pick at her nails, since Reid will notice, as he noticed during the initial Doyle debacle. She cannot rely on them all being caught up in JJ's post-wedding high to not see that something is different with her. Mentally taking a deep breath, she bypasses her desk, her friends, and the stack of consults, and makes a beeline for Hotch's office.

"Good morning," she says in what she hopes is a typically-professional voice. Everything feels different. And she wants to kiss him. _Hotch,_ she reminds herself. _This is Hotch._

He smiles at her.

_Dammit._

"Good morning," he replies, and sets down his pen. There are stacks of files on his desk, pending cases Garcia has given him to review, consults, post-case reports and debriefs. "What do you need?"

She huffs out a breath, the "tell" he teased her about a few nights ago. "A year's supply of Valium and a vodka chaser?"

His welcoming, decidedly un-Hotch-like grin softens into something more like empathy, and she wishes he'd be more Hotch-like, so she can keep them separate in her mind; the man who is her superior and the man discovered last night that she likes it when he scrapes his teeth along her collarbone.

"Round-table room, five minutes?" he asks.

She nods, "Rip off the bandaid, I guess."

"Emily," he begins, rising from his desk. He comes around the side of his desk, but comes no closer to her, and she is grateful. She is so nervous right now, she wants to wrap herself around him and feel safe again, and knows that she can't.

"Call me 'Prentiss.'" She all but begs it, and feels embarrassed that she is having such trouble keeping their professional and personal lives separate. Perhaps if she didn't feel so unhinged, wasn't so afraid of undoing all the trust she has spent eight months rebuilding with her friends, it would be easier to compartmentalize him.

He arches an eyebrow, unable to hide his bemusement. "I've called you Emily for years," he says in a low voice, since his door is open and people are constantly walking by on the catwalk.

"But until last night you never did it just before licking that spot behind my ear," she retorts in an equally low voice.

He almost blushes. "Fair point." He chuckles to himself before sitting behind his desk again. "See you in five."

With a swift nod, she leaves his office, and hopes she's got enough acting chops to get through the next 300 seconds. She approaches the team, schooling her face in what she hopes is a neutral mask - _very Hotch-like_, she thinks.

"Morning, Princess." Morgan greets her with his customary cheeky grin. He and Garcia have wandered out of their offices to join Reid and JJ. For form, she rolls her eyes at the nickname, even though they both know she secretly doesn't mind it.

Ried, sitting at his desk, meets her eyes. "How was your day off?"

"Oh, y'know," she begins, waving her hand dismissively. "Didn't do much. Woke up with a _crazy_ hangover."

"You too?" Garcia exclaims, mirroring Derek's body language as she half sits on a desk that isn't hers. He has his office, she has her lair, but they are down here mingling with their friends and colleagues, because all they've got are consults and as far as anyone knows, it's going to be an easy day.

Emily nods sympathetically, and mentally sighs in relief that she didn't let it slip she already knew about Penelope's hangover, from Aaron. She softly hipchecks JJ and grins. "And how're you, Mrs. LaMontagne?"

The team collectively laughs as JJ pales.

"Did you forget what happened the other night?" Derek teases. "I mean, Rossi throws a bangin' party, but…"

"No, I definitely remember that I got married," JJ replies. "It's just….gonna take some getting used to."

"Are you doing to change your last name?" Garcia asks, playing with a pen she has picked up off of JJ's desk.

JJ wrinkles her nose. "I don't think so. I mean, professionally, I've built my reputation as Agent _Jureau_. Changing it to LaMontagne might be confusing."

"Plenty of people keep their maiden names professionally but change them legally," Emily interjects, happy to keep the focus of the conversation on JJ. Derek had given her a look when she first joined the group, and she doesn't want to give anything away before the team meeting Hotch should be calling in….about 120 seconds.

But JJ still looks uncomfortable. "Yeah, but...I dunno. It just doesn't feel like it's for me."

"You know," Reid says, and they all know they're in for a mini-lecture on the history of married women changing their surnames.

"In the United States, women historically took their husbands' last names because they legally were made to. It was called 'coverture,' and it stemmed from the notion that a married woman had no rights to her own property or to make contracts in her own name. The law essentially stated that she had no right to her own name at all. Her husband took on all legal rights for the couple. You know, coverture remained law in most states until the 1960s and '70s. There were remnants of coverture laws in some states that forbade women from taking out their own lines of credit."

The team exchanges amused glances, all far too used to Reid's dissertations to remark on the length of his speech.

"Happily, I've had my own line of credit for years," JJ quips.

"And Will doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to care about that kind of thing," Derek adds.

JJ shrugs, "We've done everything else untraditionally - got pregnant before we were engaged, and our four-year old son was at the wedding…"

Out of the corner of her eye, Emily sees Hotch stick his head into Rossi's office, and her heart begins to pound.

"BAU Alpha Team," Hotch calls, striding towards the conference room with Rossi close behind. "Meeting."

The team exchanges confused glances, their eyes filling with a trepidation and resignation that comes with years of doing this job.

"Do we have a case?" Reid asks, rising from his desk.

Garcia shakes her head, and begins teetering on fabulously high heels towards the stairs. "Not that I know of."

"Ugh, that's never a good sign - when a case goes straight to Hotch," JJ adds, remembering her days as Press Liaison.

Emily files in behind her friends, with Morgan taking up the rear. She feels his hand gently rest on her tricep. "Do you know what this is about?" His voice is low in her ear, only for her.

She pauses and forces herself to look him in the eye, but says nothing. She doesn't want to lie to him.

He nods, his eyes expressive and resigned. "Alright, then. If you're sure this is what you want."

She can't hear any derision or disagreement in his tone, and tries to find courage and peace in that.

The rest of the team is seated when they enter the room. She meets Hotch's eyes - she can't help it. She _needs_ his reassurance if she's really going to do this, and she finds herself both ashamed and thrilled that she has that need. She likes to think of herself as a woman who doesn't need a man to validate herself. Her inner profiler chides her. _It's not that he's a man and you're a woman. It's that you're human, and scared, and need a hand to hold. What's wrong with that?_

She sees his nearly undetectable nod, and offers him a tiny smile by way of thanks. She takes a seat between Morgan and Rossi, and folds her hands on the table in front of her. It is taking all of her willpower not to pick at her nails.

The television behind Hotch displays only the FBI seal, and not the orangey desktop that indicates there is a pictorial briefing to follow. The team looks at him expectantly, their faces varying degrees of what he has come to call chaotic neutral. They are all trained profilers, used to keeping their expressions schooled. But he knows them, knows their body language, and can see the tension in the way they sit, the apprehension in their eyes.

He remembers the looks in their eyes, the shock and disbelief, the pain, the hope, the betrayal, when he stood before them - fresh off the plane from Afghanistan - and told them Emily was alive. He knows he is lying to them by omission now, but whatever is happening between he and Emily is private. The team is their family, but even family doesn't need to know everything all the time. And thus, he begins with a lie. A white lie, but a lie nevertheless.

"This morning, Agent Prentiss handed me her resignation. In two weeks' time, she will no longer be a member of the BAU."

It's like all the air is sucked out of the room. Garcia nearly gasps. Reid appears resigned, as does JJ - they both overheard her end of the conversation with Clyde the day of the bank heist. Morgan, of course, already knew, to a degree. Rossi simply offers her a reassuring smile - he has lived through too much, seen too many things, to begrudge a friend and colleague much of anything.

She feels as though she has to apologize. "Clyde Easter offered me leadership of Interpol's London office. It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up."

"You're going to London?" Garcia's voice is teary, and Emily knows her soft-hearted friend doesn't want her to be on another continent again.

"Actually, I turned down the London posting," she replies hastily, wanting to remove the look to sadness from the technical analyst's face.

JJ clears her throat. "But you're still resigning." Her face, only moments ago full of happiness, is now shadowed.

"Jayje…" Emily's voice is soft, apologetic. She had hoped her friend - who had commandeered a State Department jet and flown her under cover of darkness to Paris, who had stayed awake all hours of the day and night playing Scrabble with her while she was in exile, who welcomed Emily into her home while her lover and child slept and listened to her grief and guilt - would be more understanding now.

She looks around the table, meeting the eyes of her friends, her team. "You guys….know that I haven't been the same since…"

"Since you got back?" Rossi supplies helpfully.

"Since I died," she answers. Her conversation with Aaron last night, she realizes, has given her the words she needs to help her family understand. "The whole thing with Ian...broke something in me, and I've spent over a year trying to fix it. But in Paris, I couldn't be me, and when I came back here, I spent so much time trying to fix everything that I thought I'd broken between all of us, I never took any time to try and figure out how to fix myself."

"But...we can help you," Penelope insists. "We're a family."

Emily reaches towards her friend, and can barely brush the other woman's fingertips across the table. "I know we are. You all mean the world to me." She sighs. "But I think this is something I have to do on my own."

"Where will you go?" Reid's voice sounds almost tinny, and slightly hollow.

"New York." She offers him a smile, hoping the fact that New York is so much closer than London will be a pick-me-up. "I'll be running Interpol's office at the UN." Easter had sent her an email earlier that morning - the head of the Americas had agreed to the request, and the paperwork was being typed up as they all sat in the BAU.

"Congratulations." Morgan's voice is strong, and she knows he means it.

"Thank you." She looks around the room, and sees that Reid and Garcia are trying to muster up the same sentiment. JJ is too good of a friend to hold an actual grudge about this, and the blonde woman rises from her seat and gives her a hug around the shoulders, her chin on Emily's shoulder.

Rossi squeezes her hand, murmurs, "Way to go, kid."

"Thanks Dave," she replies.

Reid and Garcia still look crestfallen, and she knows what she has to tell them. It's things she never said to her bureau-mandated therapist, things she's never shared with Hotch, but it's something she knows she needs to say now.

She looks Reid in the eyes. "You remember the case with Sammy and his parents?"

He nods, confused. Of course he remembers. He doesn't understand how that has anything to do with her leaving again.

"The night we got back from Louisiana, what did you do?" She knows what they all did, in crystal clear detail, because Ian had told her.

He frowns, searching the archive that is his brain. "I went to a music store and bought a keyboard. Sammy made me want to learn to play properly."

She nods, looks at Garcia. "Do you know what you did?"

Garcia shakes her head. "No."

"You had a movie night with Morgan, in your office."

Garcia's eyes snap to Morgan's for confirmation, but he can only shrug, as if to say _I suppose we did_. They do movie nights a lot, so remembering one in particular from over a year ago is a challenge. But there's something that tells him Prentiss is correct.

Emily points at Rossi. "You and Seaver played video games in _your _office."

Finally, she points at Hotch. "You were home, with Jack. You probably snuck into his room while he was sleeping, gave him a kiss on the head."

He nods slowly. "Yes, I probably did. What's this about, Prentiss?"

He is addressing her as she requested to be addressed, and still it makes her ache inside. She wants to hear him call her by her name.

"That night, I went to the Mall. I bought two cups of coffee, and sat outside."

"That was in February," Reid reminds her. "You must have been freezing."

"I was," she tells him. "But I didn't care. I was too focused, and too scared." She's still not sure how much of the entire tale they managed to piece together, while they were looking for her, and while they thought she was dead. "When Sean McAllister told me Ian had escaped from prison, it was like my entire world came crashing in. I thought I'd put Lauren Reynolds behind me…"

She had viewed the "car crash" as a clean start. JTF-12 faked Lauren Reynold's death, and Emily Prentiss had buried everything she'd done and everything she'd felt. But it hadn't been enough.

She takes a deep breath, and continues. "Then Sean was killed, and Tsia told me Jeremy had been killed. We closed ranks. While I was with you all in Louisiana, Clyde and Tsia worked the Doyle case. They found video footage of him disembarking a chartered jet at a small private airfield in Virginia. He'd already sent me anonymous text messages, flowers. I hadn't been sleeping."

She forces herself to look at them all, again. Unsurprisingly, her gaze finally lands on Hotch, and she tells him her story, taking comfort from the look of support he's giving her, even though she knows he is angry, though not necessarily at her. "Every night since I'd spoken with Sean, I sat awake, with my gun, staring at my booby-trapped front door, listening for my booby-trapped windows. When Tsia and Clyde confirmed for me he was in DC, I knew it was only a matter of time. He'd had me under surveillance anyway. So I bought us coffee, and I waited."

She knows in their minds, they're running the reasons why she would have bought a murderer and international weapons dealer who was out for revenge a cup of coffee. To this day, she's not even sure why she did it. It seemed….hospitable, in a way, if nothing else.

She sighs. "I waited for two hours before he showed. He touched my shoulder, and called me Lauren. And then he told me what each and every one of you were doing. He asked me what the 'lovely Penelope' would think if she knew what I'd done as a member of JTF-12, what Hotch, home with Jack, would think. He asked me why I hadn't been invited to Rossi and Seaver's game night, or why I wasn't riding the Metro with Reid." She clears her throat, the memories threatening to strangle her. "He told me I was alone."

"He lied," Morgan growls.

"I know," she says as she sees old rage flash through his eyes. They all have it, Hotch seemingly most of all. "But he wasn't lying about having the rest of you under surveillance. And I couldn't let him hurt you the way I knew he would hurt me." The brand had burned so much, hurt so much, and yet she'd almost agreed with him - she almost agreed that she'd deserved it. And then when he stabbed her - well, the woman he'd called Lauren Reynolds was supposed to be dead, right?

She feels her eyes fill with tears, and tries to blink them away. "I couldn't let him hurt Jack, or Henry, or Will, or any of you. I would let him stab me again if it protected all of you."

"Dammit, Emily," Rossi begins.

"I know," she says quickly. "But I was under oath, and you all didn't have clearance. None of you agreed to be a member of the joint task force. It wasn't fair to let my sins ruin your lives."

Her sins. The words ring in Hotch's ears. She still thinks of them as sins, the things she did following orders. Her upbringing, old habits, and her humanity, all mixing together to torture her. He remembers, years ago, on the Schrader case, that she said people who go undercover have to be willing to take a lot of professional and personal risks. None of them realized she was speaking from personal experience. He wonders if, at the time, she had any idea of the risks to come. His heart breaks for her, and he wants to sweep her up and carry her away from this, but knows he can't, for reasons far beyond and far greater than simply the FBI's regulations about fraternization.

Tears sting in her eyes, and she wills them not to fall. "I know I hurt all of you by not telling you, and then by what had to happen after Boston…"

"That's in the past." JJ all but whispers it.

Emily nods. "And I know I can't apologize for it any more than I've already done…"

"You don't need to," Reid tells her, and she feels her heart swell. His anger at her return at stung worst of all, and to hear him say that she has no need to apologize heals something inside her.

"But I do need to try and get past everything that happened, and I just don't feel like I can do it in DC." She lets out a watery laugh. "If I could pack you all up, and move the whole BAU to Timbuktu, I'd do it, but I can't."

Rossi points a finger at Hotch, "Send a memo to Strauss, wouldja?"

Garcia wipes away a tear as she rises from her seat walks towards Emily. With more strength than Emily thought the other woman capable of, she is pulled from her seat and wrapped in a bear hug. "I am going to throw you _such_ a bitchin' going away party," Garcia whispers tearily in her ear.

"Thank you Penelope," she replies, the tears in her eyes finally spilling over. The team gathers around her, taking turns for hugs and congratulations. She finds herself in a Reid and JJ sandwich and over their shoulders, she meets Aaron's eyes.

And smiles.

* * *

**Author's Note:**Reid's dissertation on coverture is lifted nearly word for word from an NBC news article about it. It was written in such a way that sounded so in character for Reid, I didn't have to do much to it. Thanks, NBC news! (no copyright infringement intended)


	5. When I'm Gone

**Author's Note:** I've been trying to keep up a "post one chapter every Sunday" schedule, but Chapter Six will not be posted until Sunday, August 10. 2014. Next weekend I'm away for a business conference for four days, and won't be able to post. So sorry!

* * *

Interpol, the UN, New York - it feels almost perfect. Challenging, tiring, headache-inducing, but perfect. The combination of a new city, and a supervisory position in international law enforcement seem to be some of her missing links. She does not know if she's ever associated a feeling of contentment with her work, if she'd ever understood that it could be fulfilling without also feeling utterly tortuous, and like she is giving away pieces of her soul to every case.

When she came to New York three months ago, she was expecting the change of scenery to be the most restorative. Even though she has plenty of BAU-related memories in this city - terrorists and explosions and colleagues dying and Hotch almost dying - none of them are related to JTF-12 and Ian Doyle. She had hoped that would be enough. The job, initially, was something she knew how to do, something she knew she'd be good at, a fantastic professional opportunity; she'd never expected to like it quite so much. The pay is good, and she finds she has slightly more of a work-life balance now that she isn't required to fly all over the country at a moment's notice.

She has developed a rhythm with colleagues and subordinates alike, and although she'd never admit it, she owes her mother a debt for the international upbringing, if only because growing up in Europe and the Middle East as a diplomat's daughter has made navigating the intricacies of life at the UN a bit easier. She'll never admit it, but her last name carries plenty of cache at the UN. They are all still figuring each other out, herself, her staff, and her superiors. But her reputation, from JTF-12 and the BAU, and Clyde Easter's unwavering support do wonders to smooth some of the bumps that come in the first few months of a new job.

Slowly, she feels as though she is becoming a New Yorker. There is a bagel shop she visits several mornings a week for breakfast - New York bagels, especially on the East Side are both a right and a privilege and she is not so foolish as to pass up the opportunity. She likes that they know how she takes her coffee - black. The neighborhood bar learns her patterns, knows when to offer her a beer, knows when to offer her whiskey, neat. She remembers scotch with Rossi and Aaron after terrible cases, and it makes her feel more comfortable - the more things change, and so on.

She's renting a restored brownstone on the border of the Murray Hill and Kip's Bay neighborhoods. Someone Morgan knows through his home-flipping thing hooks her up, and even when the water heater fails, she loves living there, despite three days of cold showers until a repairman can come in. The proximity to the UN is far enough that she doesn't literally feel like she lives at work, but close enough that on the days she leaves the office nearly asleep on her feet, she's home in hardly any time at all.

There are takeout places she favors, delivery boys who smile when they see her. She loves cooking, but she still has a demanding job and New York City has literally thousands of restaurants she can order from through a cell phone app while she sits in a cab on the way home. The ease and convenience is too tempting, and she finds that in a short span of time, she's on a first name basis with a few delivery people. She is both chagrinned, and comforted by that.

Her local fluff and fold knows her by name, and there is a bodega steps from her brownstone door that she frequents for staples and bizarre exotic items alike, as well as the occasional late night pint of ice cream. She window shops, visits restaurants, takes walks along the East River, the sound of traffic on the FDR unexpectedly soothing. When she has time, she takes in a play. She visits museums on weekends, when she can.

She is building something like a life, and learns to live with herself again.

There are gaps, naturally. She hates how many nights she goes to bed alone. She feels foolish and utterly female, a contradiction - she is trained in firearms and international espionage, self defense and interrogation techniques, self assured and strong, and yet there is a part of her that goes soft and gooey when she thinks of Hotch, of Aaron. There is a part of her that yearns to fall asleep beside him, to curl up to him in the night, and feel his warmth beside her.

He is Aaron, now. He always has been, of course, but now that they are free of the shackles of FBI regulations and their shared stubborn adherence to them, they can simply be Aaron and Emily. They Skype or FaceTime as often as possible, and speak on the phone, however briefly when either or both of them are on cases - there are text messages, emails. They are in constant contact. Jack mails her arts and crafts he has made at school, and she mails him postcards she finds as she wanders around the city.

They are building something like a life too. Unconventional, imperfect, and difficult, but worth it.

She still has nightmares - she relives old cases, and they mix and merge. She sees her old team die a thousand different ways at the hands of a thousand different UNSUBs, sees the victims of certain UNSUBS die at the hands of others. Sometimes she dreams she sits in bars and talks with the victims they were unable to save and she thinks _Don't they know they're dead?_

Sometimes she sees Declan die, sees Jack and Henry killed. The horrors of her job live in her dreams and haunt her frequently.

Doyle haunts her. He comes to her in sleep and tells her about every person he killed, and how, and why - because of her, because she betrayed him, because she took Declan from him, even if she didn't kill him. He tells her how he killed Sean and his family, how he disposed of Jeremy when his usefulness had run out. He tells her how Tsia literally never even saw him kill her. He tells her the thousand ways he planned to kill her. He tells her that he'll kill her team; he knows all the worst ways to kill her family.

He tells her how he'll inject Ried with Dilaudid, how he can poison Rossi's scotch and make it look like a heart attack; he has associates that can make what happened to Morgan as a teenager pale in comparison to what they will do to him now; Garcia, he will simply shoot in the heart, and then give her a Glasgow smile, to make her "cheerful, even in death." For JJ, he plans rape and military-style torture, and then a snapped neck. He tells Emily he will dispose of Will simply, because it's cleaner, and that Henry will meet the same fate that Emily made him think had ended Declan. Jack will get the same treatment, while his father bleeds out from stab wounds _intended_ to kill him, not just scar. In her nightmares, he shows her all this, waiting to kill her until she has watched everyone she loves die horrible deaths. He makes sure she dies knowing it is all her fault.

She wakes up screaming.

In the beginning, she didn't call Aaron when she woke up sweating and sobbing, bed sheets soaked with cold sweat, her eyes darting to every shadow, convinced monsters were waiting to jump out of them. For nearly a month, she didn't tell him they were happening. She didn't want to worry him. But he'd known something was wrong, and eventually he'd pulled the truth from her. He'd been in Eau Claire, WI, on a case, but he's gotten on FaceTime from his hotel room, and they'd spoken of it face to face, as best they could.

She'd yelled, she'd wept.

"_He can't get you sweetheart. He can't get any of us." His eyes were kind, and exhausted, and she felt guilty for bothering him, for burdening him._

_"I should let you go," she said quickly, embarrassed and ashamed. She hadn't wanted him to see her cry. She hadn't wanted to be seen crying. _

_"Emily." His voice was firm. "You don't have to talk to me about it, but you really should talk to _someone_."_

_Because Bureau-mandated therapists weren't bad enough, he now wanted her to go talk to an Interpol-mandated one, she'd thought._

_She scoffed. "Yes, because what Interpol really wants to see is their new Branch Director sitting across from a Company shrink."_

_He frowned. "As a city, New York is one of the most densely-populated with psychiatrists and psychologists. I wasn't referring to an Interpol therapist, Em." His voice softened. "I mean a private clinician you could speak to on your terms, who wouldn't be obligated to report your sessions to anyone."_

_That he thought she might need professional help stung. He must've seen the anger in her face._

_"You should do what you think is best for you. I'm just offering a suggestion." _

It felt like a fight, or an almost fight, and after they'd hung up she'd swung the gamut of emotions from anger to guilt to shame and back again.

Two days later, a member of the Irish delegation greeted a staffer by the name of Lauren, and a male Irish accent saying "Hello Lauren" had been enough to send Emily into a full blown panic attack. Her assistant had walked into her office to find her sitting on the floor behind her desk, sobbing and hyperventilating. It had taken everything she had to convince the man she didn't need medical assistance.

She'd left early, claiming illness, and had an email off to Garcia before the livery cab had even pulled up to being her building. One blisteringly hot shower and two shots of tequila later, she'd received a reply with a list of therapists in Manhattan who were both covered by her insurance and who had backgrounds in working with law enforcement officials.

Three days later, Emily texted Aaron a picture of the name placards in the lobby of her new shrink's office building. She'd nearly wept when she'd seen his response, their first communication since they'd argued, or hadn't argued.

Call me tonight. I'm here if you want to tell me about it. Or not talk about it at all.

I'll call you tonight. And I'm sry about the last time we spoke.

There's no need to apologize. I'll talk to you tonight.

She sees her therapist weekly, and they're currently engaged in a lively debate over an anxiety medication and a sleep aid. She's terrified to admit she agrees with her doctor that medication might be useful. She's terrified to learn about all the scar tissue inside, to cut it open and examine it. She's afraid she might come apart at the seams, as though it's the only thing holding her together. She's afraid she'll lose Aaron if she gets help, and if she doesn't.

He tells her that she won't, but they both know she needs to learn for herself that it is the truth.

At what she considers her weakest moments, she has found herself in tears, and has been shocked to realize that sometimes they are happy tears. She is content in her job, and there is a man who has supported her so unquestioningly, she thinks perhaps she owes him a debt as well. She makes a mental note to thank him - if she can get through it without crying - for being her support when her better angels would otherwise have been shouted down by the shadows that she has allowed to haunt her. She knows he adores her, and she him, and his little boy makes them both smile. They love each other - though they have never spoken of it, she knows it to be true, and is content to wait to tell him, or to hear him say it. She never knew she could be simultaneously happy and terrified, content and insecure, relieved and overwhelmed, all because of love.

She learns things, every day, about herself, about her surroundings, about the people she loves.

It is exhilarating.

She rides the wave of exhilaration as she waits for the last-arriving Acela train of the evening at Penn Station. It is nearly eleven o'clock at night, and the station is fairly empty. The fluorescent lights give everything a terrible blue-green hue and it's giving her a headache, but she doesn't care. It is his first visit to the city since her move, and she cannot wait to see him. Jack is away at a two week-long summer camp, and Aaron has taken some honest-to-God vacation time. If the team pulls a case, it will be without him. He is not on call, and he has four whole days to spend with her; a four-day weekend. Her assistant - she has an assistant - finagled her schedule to give her some shorter days on Thursday and Friday, and she intends to make the most of them.

If his goddamned train ever shows up.

She looks at the giant arrival and departure board that hangs in the middle of the station and notices that his train is showing as delayed by fifteen minutes. With a huff, she settles herself on the floor, back supported by a short pony wall that blocks the stairwell to the lower tracks. Penn Station has a seating area, but at this time of night in an air-conditioned train station in late, members of the city's homeless population are stretched out across most of the seats trying to get a few hours of shut eye before transit cops and NYPD force them back out into the heat. There's supposed to be a thunderstorm tonight that will break the sweltering heat and humidity the city has been dealing with, and she's more than happy for a summer thunderstorm if it brings the perfect weather the TV meteorologists have promised.

Now all she needs is for his freakin' train to arrive.

Although technology has made their long distance relationship more feasible than it would have been even five years ago, going three months without being able to touch him has been difficult. They'd pulled a case just a day after they told the team she was leaving, and that had kept them all out of town for a week. Only because they were working nearly around the clock to stop a spree killer who had escalated into a family annihilator did she and Aaron manage to not to entirely disregard the fraternization regs.

When they'd returned to DC, however… that was another thing entirely. Their first time had been by turns awkward and amazing. She'd tried seducing him over Thai takeout and wine, candlelight and an indoor picnic in front of her fireplace. For people in their almost and mid-to-late 40s, they were both astonishingly awkward and kind of terrible at seduction.

Still, once they'd worked out how to abandon pretense, and just be themselves and be honest, they'd become surprisingly good at physical intimacy with each other. All she knows is at one point her ears were ringing, and she had an orgasm so intense she could temporarily no longer feel her hands or feet. And, as it turned out, the blankets and pillows she'd thrown on the floor for the indoor picnic had been useful for falling asleep on and curling up under - until they realized they were too old to comfortably sleep on floors, at which point he'd scooped her up, carried her into the bedroom, and made her ears ring all over again. The next morning, they went to breakfast at the diner down the street.

Her final weeks in DC had been consumed by packing, and spending time with her friends, and with Aaron and Jack. The Jack thing had been tentative at first, because it was a lot for a six year old to comprehend that Daddy's one friend wasn't going to be around anymore, and that his other friend, who Jack had known - to varying degrees - his entire life, was going to be spending more time with both Hotchner men, except for the whole part where she was moving to another city. When Aaron had tried to explain it to the boy, he'd looked at the adults like they'd lost what few marbles he believed they still possessed. It had been an adjustment for all of them.

Still, they'd forged on, with a trip to the National Zoo one day, and a pizza-and-movie night another. They watched _Captain America_ and _Monsters, Inc._, and by the end of it they were all varying degrees of asleep on the couch. Both Hotchner men had escorted her to the airport on the day she left DC, and there had been tears and hugs and a kiss that had gone on perhaps slightly longer than was acceptable in public and had Jack making overexaggerated gagging noises until the adults sheepishly broke apart.

_It's been almost three months,_ she thinks. Three months since she's kissed Aaron Hotchner, held him, been held by him. It feels more than a little foolish and utterly female, but she is near to bursting with excitement. Her house is spotless, and the Fresh Direct guys earned the massive tip she'd given them when they delivered to her four days' worth of food and beer. One of the marvels of living in New York City - she can order her groceries online, in bed, and set a delivery time. Miraculous. And expensive, but totally worth it. She has a drunken french toast casserole and cold brew coffee sitting in the fridge at home doing their thing, and plans for a combination of home-cooked meals and restaurants for the next four days. It occurs to her she should ask if there's anything _he_ wants to do, particularly, because otherwise she's got her itinerary and they're going to stick to it.

Soup dumplings in Chinatown, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, homemade ice cream from a shop in DUMBO, _New York City pizza,_ a free concert in Central Park Saturday night, a free movie in Bryant Park Friday night… She wonders if she's got them at too much of a breakneck pace, but she'd been trying to find a balance between being utterly touristy, and spending the entire damn weekend naked and in bed.

She is so busy mentally reviewing everything she wants to do with him that she does not immediately realize that a pair of impeccably shined and well-maintained black shoes at the end of long, perfectly tailored pants-clad legs stand before her. With a jolt, she looks up and a smile spreads across her face. A hand reaches down to her and pulls her to her feet, and she finds herself looking into smiling brown eyes.

"Hi," he says softly.

"You're late," she grouses, draping her arms over his shoulders as she affects a fake pout.

He shrugs nonchalantly, "You know how it is. A profiler's work is never done."

"Please." She rolls her eyes and scoffs. "Don't tell me you caught and solved a case in the three hours it took you to get here."

He makes a show of glancing at his watch. "Three hours and seven minutes," he corrects her.

They have matching smiles now, and a mischievous glint in their eyes. Departing passengers and people bound for points north mill about around them, but they are oblivious to anyone but each other.

"You haven't kissed me yet," she points out, lips millimeters from his.

His eyebrows raise quickly with amusement. "How impolite of me, not greeting my hostess."

His lips hover a breath away, torturously, and she nips playfully at his lower one. "Well, you better get to it, or she's going to be very annoyed."

"We can't have that." He murmurs it against her mouth, enjoying the fact that he's taunting her.

As he anticipates, she grows tired of waiting for him and takes matters into her own hands. He feels the fingers of one of her hands slide up his neck and fist into his hair as she rises on tiptoe to close the miniscule distance between them. She anchors herself to him, wrapping herself around him in such a way that he cannot help but drop his bag onto the floor. His arms come around her and he all he can think is _Finally_. It has been too long since he's had her like this. No matter how wonderful video chat is, how convenient emails and text, how frequently they speak on the phone, it has been too long since he has been able to feel the weight of her against him, and it is glorious.

He is tired from a long day of work, and uncomfortable from having to travel in his suit, even though he really should be long past used to that by now. The train was stuffy and the station is frigid and he knows outside it is oppressively hot, but none of that matters now because they're together, again.

She buries her face in his neck and inhales deeply, smelling his sweat and cologne, the starch his dry cleaner uses on his shirts. He tastes faintly of mediocre coffee and a hamburger, likely from the train's cafe car, but she doesn't care, because he is here, and they have four days together. She feels his fingers trace idle patterns on her back as he holds her, and she considers scrapping her entire itinerary and just spending the weekend in bed with him.

She pulls back slightly, nuzzling her nose along his skin as she moves, and can't keep the gigantic grin off her face when she looks at him.

"Wanna come see my place?"

Her eyes twinkle and she makes him laugh. "Absolutely."

Before he can stop her, she's shouldering his go bag. With one look she dares him to try and take it back, and he rolls a carry on suitcase behind him as they make their way to the escalator that will deposit them on Manhattan's busy streets. It is after eleven on a Wednesday evening, but they are underneath Madison Square Garden and half a block from Macy's, just south of Times Square. There will be crowds, he is sure.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he says, resting a hand lightly on her hip as they ascend.

She rolls her eyes as she leans against the wall of the escalator, her body angled towards him. "It's not like you have any control over train delays."

"But you have to work tomorrow," he begins, smelling pretzels, dirty water hot dogs, and stale, sour trash - a staple of a New York City summer - as they emerge into blinding neon lights and swells of people.

With a scoff, she grabs his hand, as though she is afraid he will get lost, and leads him through the throngs of people. It appears as though a concert just let out at Madison Square Garden. Figures.

"Fadi cleared my schedule," she replies as they zig and zag among the crowds of concert goers. He is sweating profusely in the intense city humidity, and knows he's not going to get any more mileage out of this suit. He makes a mental note to try and find a dry cleaner to drop it off at in the morning.

"We'll never get a cab in this," he hears her mutter as they dart east across Seventh Avenue against a flashing orange signal. "It'll just be faster if we walk to my place." Without waiting for his opinion, she takes them south, away from the noise and the people.

"Your assistant," he says, of the person who cleared her schedule.

She does not let go of his hand, but her grip lessens as they turn left down West Twenty Ninth Street, still heading east. "Fadi Espinosa. The man is a miracle worker. He somehow managed it so that I don't have to go in until after ten."

Half Jordanian, half Spanish, the man in his late twenties with a degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs had been Executive Assistant to Emily's predecessor, and had chosen to stay in New York, rather than follow his former boss to the UK. He and Emily had struck up a solid rapport in the few short months they've been working together.

"He lives up to his name," she muses. "The savior and the thorn."

Aaron frowns at her as they walk under some scaffolding. "I'm sorry?"

"His name," she clarifies in a light tone. "Fadi is Arabic; it means 'savior,' and Espinosa is Spanish for 'thorn.'"

"Half the time he saves your ass, half the time he's a pain in it?"

She squeezes his hand, amused. "Exactly." She is silent for a moment. "I still don't know how I convinced him not to call medics when he found me under my desk having a panic attack."

His eyes grow wide and he stops dead in his tracks. "Emily-"

She feels a pang of regret for bringing it up, but forges on, regardless. She is working on being more open and honest, on compartmentalizing less the things she thinks will reflect poorly on jer. She tells him about the Irish staffer, and what hearing his voice did to her. At some point, they begin walking again, but slower this time, and with less purpose. "I know I have PTSD," she says quietly. "From the whole Ian thing."

That she calls him Ian and not Doyle does not go unnoticed, but Hotch does not remark upon it. They have not spoken of her therapy since right after her first appointment. He's been patient, waiting her out, not wanting to push. He knows it is an intensely private thing she is dealing with, and that she owes him nothing more than what she is willing to tell him.

"I'm working on it." Her voice sounds like a promise, and he can hear how much she needs him to believe her. He kisses her, on the corner of Twenty Ninth and Fifth, cabs whizzing by, as the Empire State Building flickers and twinkles five blocks north. His kiss is gentle, and he tries to pour all his understanding, everything he feels for her into it. He wants her to believe that what he says is true, that he is there for her, that he is not going to walk away.

His own ongoing battle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has taught him that time is the great equalizer, and can either feed the flames, or douse them.

"I know you are," he whispers against her mouth, so soft she can barely hear him over the hum of traffic and the chatter of passers by. He cups her face in his hands, leaving his suitcase to stand at his side and he strokes her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. "And I am so proud of you."

The intensity and sincerity in his eyes makes her want to weep, but she doesn't. She does, however, believe him, and tries to imprint the feeling of this moment, so that she can carry it with her, always.

"Thank you," she murmurs, leaning her head against his shoulder. He switches his suitcase to his other hand and wraps an arm around her waist before shepherding her across the busy avenue during a break in traffic. They stroll quietly, amiably, crossing Madison, Lexington, Park. He doesn't really know where they are going, and so she guides him, tugging his body in one direction or another, nudging him with her hip. They notice heat lightning fill the sky, and hear faint rumbles of what is definitely thunder.

Emily snuggles in tighter to him as a strong wind suddenly kicks up. "They forecasted severe storms for tonight, but I thought they were coming in after midnight."

She can smell the rain now, that unmistakable scent that accompanies a summer storm. She assumes it is already raining in Jersey, maybe on the West Side, and that it will sweep east rather quickly. She grabs his hand and moves them into a light jog. "We should hustle. it's only a block further."

The rain overtakes them and they are drenched in moments. It is a curtain, a wall of water that sweeps in and takes over. It is a torrent, a tempest, washing away the heat and humidity. Emily lets out a girlish squeal as the cold rain hits her hot, sweaty skin, and Aaron cannot help but yell when the rain startles him. Splashing and yelling as they dash down the sidewalk, they make it to her townhouse and Emily digs out her key fob, waving it in front of the sensor before punching in the code to unlock her door. She scampers in, tossing his sodden go-bag down the hall. She takes his suitcase from him, throwing it as well. Water streams off of it, and Sergio goes running for cover with an annoyed yowel. Emily cannot help but laugh.

They are standing in her doorway looking like drowned rats. His suit looks to be losing the molecular structure of fabric and she is sure her makeup must be running. She looks at their feet and sees small puddles forming where they stand. This only makes her laugh all the harder.

He joins her in laughter, feeling something he can only describe as pure joy. They managed to not get hit by lightning, and the run - and the woman before him - has his blood pumping. Her hair is stringy and wet, and her mascara has run, leaving her looking like a sad raccoon. As she laughs, he runs the pads of his thumbs along her skin, trying to clear away the black makeup. Her eyes meet his, and he sees something like lust and joy flash in them. In seconds, his hands tangle in her long dark hair as he crushes his mouth against hers.

Her front door is open still, and Sergio is giving them and the storm a wide berth. Hotch's suit is likely ruined and Emily's clothes stick to her, full of rainwater. Her arms band tightly around him as they kiss, as she gives no quarter against his demanding mouth. They are wrapped in each other in an open doorway where anyone can see them, but they do not care, because they cannot remember the last time they felt so alive.


End file.
